Prelude: My story of negligence from doctors at Leicester Royal Infirmary and Glenfield Hospital

My 53-year-old husband, Alan, suffered a dissecting thoracic aneurysm in 1999 and during the operation, performed by pioneering heart surgeon Prof Stephen Westaby, he lost the use of a lung and a kidney. He was in hospital for more than three months and ‘died’ several times. He attended hospital regularly thereafter for further scans. In October 2002 he had his final scan and was expecting to be discharged.

A week or so later he received a letter from the hospital saying that a small bulge had been found at the bottom of his aorta but it was nothing to worry about.

He was given a new appointment at Northampton General Hospital, for January 2003 where he was told by the consultant, Mr Ratliffe, that the aneurysm was now 7.5 cm and that because of the complications left by previous surgery, it was outside of his expertise. He was referred to Leicester Royal Infirmary urgently and immediately.

We saw Sir Professor Peter Bell, at LRI, in February and he explained to Alan the procedure he could do to repair the aneurysm. He felt there were a few options which wouldn’t involve re-opening the previous surgery site where his ribs are stapled together.

Professor Robert Stuart Bonser

NHS Death Row versus The Priory Hospital: Professor 'God' Bonser :)

This blog is a HUGE "Thank You" to Professor Robert Stuart Bonser - of the Priory Hospital in Birmingham - for saving my husbands' life, after he had been deliberately misdiagnosed as inoperable and terminally ill by a Professor with a Knighthood who was working for the NHS.

Cure the NHS campaign group

Dead patients don't cost the NHS a thing

How many women need to stand up to Britain’s cash-strapped National Health Service and strip its policies bare to reveal a strange, ingrown corruption that declares some patients inoperable, and sends them home to die, in order to balance their books and reduce waiting lists?The dual culprits in my husbands' potential demise were a nastily burgeoning aneurysm on his aorta, and a National Health Service so good at hiding life-saving information, even from itself, that it could spend as much to kill him as to save him. When a doctor can save a life, he is supposed to do it, but some keep silent about expensive treatment. Dead patients don't cost the NHS a thing.This could happen to any one of us.When you are given a prognosis with no hope, please don’t stop there. The worldwide web is very useful to help research anything and everything that might apply to your illness. My own research found life-saving information in the USA, The Netherlands, Germany and Norway. But what I really needed was right here in the UK - the NHS just didn't want me to know about it. This story has been featured in Take a Break magazine in the UK.

Sir Professor Peter Bell

The knighted professor at Leicester Royal Infirmary who diagnosed my husband inoperable to save money for the NHS and to meet Government targets. He didn't have the relevant expertise himself but failed to use NHS guidelines to refer my husband to Professor Bonser, until 14 months later, despite knowing of his expertise. click on picture to view email.

University Hospitals Leicester

Cardiologists lead the way in the task of deciding which patients should receive certain expensive diagnostic tests and which should not